The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [152]
Her eyes widened. “Yeah. ’Course ’e did. Or at least warn ’im. Upset a lot o’ people, that did … important people, like. None o’ us, mind. Laughed till we creased ourselves, we did.”
“What people?” Monk paused, knowing something eluded him, something that mattered.
“ ’Ere, wot’s this abaht?” she said with a frown. “It’s all dead an’ buried nah. ’Oo cares anymore? It don’t ’ave nuffink ter do wi’ them rapes ’ere.”
“I know it doesn’t. I just want to know. Tell me,” he pressed.
“Well, there was a few gents wot felt theirselves a bit exposed, like, arter that.” She laughed hugely at her own joke. “They’d always trusted you rozzers to keep yer distance from certain ’ouses o’ pleasure.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Arter that they din’t trust no one. Couldn’t. It kind o’ soured relations atween the rozzers and certain people o’ influence. On’y time I ever thought as I could like Mr. Runcorn. Bleedin’ pain, ’e is, most o’ the time. Worse ’n you. Yer a mean bastard, but yer was straight, and yer weren’t full o’ cant. I never knowed yer ta preach one thing an’ do another. Not like ’im.” She looked at him more closely. “Wot is it, Monk? W’y d’yer give a toss abaht a twenty-year-old raid in a bawdy ’ouse?”
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly.
“Arter yer, is ’e?” she asked with a note of something which could even have been sympathy. He was not sure whether it was for him or for Runcorn.
“After me?” he repeated. “Why?” It sounded foolish, but she knew something about it or she would not have leaped to such a conclusion. He had to know. He was too close now not to grasp it, whatever it was.
“Well, yer dropped ’im right in it, din’t yer?” she said incredulously. “Yer knew all them folk was there, an’ yer never toi’ ’im. Let ’im charge in an’ make a right fool of ’isself. Don’t suppose nuffink was said, but they don’ never fergive that kind o’ thing. Lorst ’is promotion then, an’ lorst ’is girl too, ’cos ’er father were one of ’em, weren’t ’e?” She shrugged. “I’d watch me back, if I was you, even arter all this time. ’E don’ fergive, yer know? Carries a grudge ’ard, does Runcorn.”
Monk was barely listening. He could not remember doing it, even after her retelling of it. But he could remember the feeling of victory, the deep, hot satisfaction of knowing he had beaten Runcorn. Now it was only shame. It had been a shabby trick and too deep a revenge for anything Runcorn could have done to him. Not that he knew of anything.
He thanked her quietly and walked out, leaving her puzzled, muttering to herself about how times had changed.
Why? He walked with his head down into the rain, hands deep in his pockets, ignoring the gutters and his wet feet. It was fully light now. Why had he done such a thing? Had it been as deliberate and as calculatedly cruel as everyone else thought? If it had, then no wonder Runcorn still hated him. To lose the promotion was fair enough. That was the fortune of war. But to lose the woman he loved must have been a bitter blow, and one Monk would not now have dealt to any man.
The trial of Rhys Duff had already begun. The information he had was highly pertinent, even if it offered little real help. He should go and tell Rathbone. Hester would be hurt. How Sylvestra Duff would take the news that her husband was also a rapist, he could not even imagine.
He crossed Regent Street, barely noticing he was out of St. Giles, and stopped to buy a hot cup of tea. Perhaps he should not tell Rathbone? It did not clear Rhys of the murder of his father, only of one rape, with which he was not charged anyway.
But it was part of the truth, and the truth mattered. They had too little of it to make sense as it was. Rathbone had paid him to learn all he could. He had promised Hester. He needed to cling to his sense of honor, the integrity, and the trust of the friends he had now. What he had been was acutely painful to contemplate. He had no memory of it, no understanding.
Did Rhys Duff understand himself?
That was irrelevant. Monk was a grown man, and whether he remembered it or not, he was responsible.